In a world obsessed with success, plenty of us feel a compulsive need to achieve.
------
We tell ourselves - and our kids - to try hard and never give up, for this is the secret to success. But by the time young people finish school, many students find it hard not to link their efforts and abilities with their identity and their self-worth with their achievements.
CPXer Justine Toh’s book Achievement Addiction calls out our fraught relationship with success. In this episode, we talk about tiger parenting and its fixation on academic accomplishment and how meritocratic ideas associating success with effort imply that our wins and failures are always deserved. We also discuss other social cues showing the value we place on achievement - like the way former Australian Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey once described Australia as a nation of “lifters, not leaners” which distinguishes between those who contribute to the public purse and those who take from it.
We also talk to Julia, a Sydney-based cardiologist, who wouldn’t describe herself as an achievement addict but who found herself striving for significance. She lets us in on what might be found on the other side of achievement.
------
Explore:
Justine Toh’s Achievement Addiction and other titles in the Re:CONSIDERING series.
Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
Michael J. Sandel’s The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good
Fully Alive with Elizabeth Oldfield
Rebroadcast: The ethics of what we eat
Playing God
Walking the Camino de Santiago
A person with dementia is still human
Resilience and Faith in the Dark streets of Bethlehem
A full life found in the world’s trouble spots
The Vanishing
How CPX Writes About Easter
Being a chaplain in the ICU ... and prison
The Return of Religious Belief
Rebroadcast: To Change the World
Birth Days
Lent for Dummies
The Social Media Age
Christmas in a place of war
Brexit, Trump ... and the Voice? Australia’s political divides
Seen & Heard V: Getting disenchanted with disenchantment
Coming to Faith Through Dawkins
“Mere Christianity”: why does C.S. Lewis’s unlikely classic continue to hold such appeal?
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Devoted To Prayer
Cast The Word
Let Me Be Frank | Bishop Frank Caggiano’s Podcast | Diocese of Bridgeport, CT
The Bible Recap
BardsFM